Doctors and dentists often have a difficult time properly illuminating an area of the patient upon which a medical procedure is being performed. Overhead lamps often do not provide adequate lighting. Moreover, such lamps usually require constant adjustment, which must be performed either by the physician or an assistant. This can disrupt the medical procedure. In recent years, fiberoptic illuminators have been widely used. These instruments typically feature a headlamp that is worn by the doctor or dentist and tethered by a fiberoptic cable to a light source. Physicians often dislike wearing an item that ties or tethers them to another instrument. Such an arrangement restricts the freedom of movement during the medical procedure. Furthermore, utilizing standard fiberoptic illumination systems requires the purchase and introduction of expensive and sometimes bulky equipment into the medical or dental office.
One example of a procedure that is awkward to properly illuminate is the standard depression of the tongue for visual examination of a patient's throat, tonsils, and adjacent areas. For many years this procedure has been performed by the use of a standard tongue depressor. The physician holds the tongue depressor in one hand and holds a light in the other hand. Alternatively, the illuminated head lamps, discussed above, may be employed. In either case, disadvantages are experienced. If the physician is required to hold a light in one hand, both hands are occupied and focusing the light properly may be difficult. A headlamp is difficult to focus properly and tethers the physician to an illuminator as described above. In either case, the interior of the mouth is not optimally illuminated.